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March
1 - Woken somewhere after 6am by a neighbours' car alarm going off. It kept on resetting and then going off again! Guess it could have been an adverse reaction to the freeze? Eventually gave up trying to snooze through it and got up around 7:15am . . .walked . . . left Sally at home and drove to the doctors surgery/pharmacy to pick up my repeat prescription after having paid the £6.50 NHS fee. . . Dropped that off at home, picked up the box of duff DVD-RWs I bought in Sainsburys, and then left Sally at home and drove to Emersons Green. Sainsburys refunded my money without question which was a relief. Shopped for groceries. £52.94!! Not sure why I keep on buying some of the stuff I keep on buying. The freezer and 'tins' cupboard are bulging and overflowing, and I hardly ever seem to eat any of it (bother with the cooking/washing up actually) these days. . . ate 'pork breakfast roll' (What IS that? Are you supposed to cook it? To hell with that!) sandwiches and then four buttered hot cross buns. . opened up my prescription only to find that there were only 15 tablets in the packet rather than the usual couple of months supply!??? Huh? As always, the computerised contradictory prescription ticket said "PRESCRIPTION EXPIRED Please see your doctor within the next 14 days
REAUTHORISED (no need to see your doctor)"!? On this occasion though, it also had a hand written addition "SEE GP". Ok - I get the message. Ugggh. :o( . . . napped - eventually. Would you believe it! The minute I lay down to nap, that same neighbours car alarm starts going off again! . . .started to PC a bit of this while watching the news on the portable TV next to the PC. Suddenly got all interested in a news report about a shooting which happened around a week ago, only a couple of miles away. I was already aware it was something like an attempted robbery and a shopkeeper had been shot in the stomach and was seriously ill in hospital, but the news report got my attention when it said that the two black guys who did it were riding around on a stolen moped and had actually shot the guy in the stomach with a shotgun (ouch - a shotgun - to the stomach!!!!! Blimey - no wonder he's in a bad way!). Yikes! Frantically checked back through my journal, counting the days/dates on my fingers and - oh my god - it happened the same day I found that motorcycle numberplate and shotgun cartridge over the field!!!!!!!! Uh oh!! That'll teach me to not bother taking the stuff straight in to a police station!!! Errrrr!!!???? Phoned the police and explained what I'd found and when. They actually put me through to the (busy) guys who were dealing with that case!! PHHHHEW!!! In pretty quick time, the policeman on the end of the phone confirmed that the attempted robbery/shooting had actually happened on the NIGHT of the 21st, the firearm used in the offence was thought to be a different calibre (should he have revealed that?), and the moped they'd used had been recovered and was NOT that of the numberplate I'd found. So - the stuff I'd found on that morning, and which I still had sat in the living room covered by now in only MY fingerprints, was nothing to do with any of that serious stuff. Phew. Some relief. :o/ Nevertheless, the policeman asked me to hang on to it and he said they'd get someone to come and pick it up from me. . belatedly put it in a plastic bag. . walked. A lot of distant emergency vehicle sirens were audible in the distance. Bet they're busy. Ridiculous that they'll have to send someone out to me, just to pick up 'some litter'! Decided I'd take it to a police station - and I've been meaning to test out the camcorder in the car at night - may as well give that a go, drive the car down there with the camcorder going, and actually drop it in at Trinity Road (I don't usually go to that one because of the impossibility of parking anywhere remotely near.) . . wrote out a quick statement on a piece of paper complete with a rough map (as I usually do, to save having to answer too many questions at the police reception desk), loaded Sally and the camcorder up in the car, and drove down to Trinity Road police station. 'Just' managed to squeeze the car into a narrow space for five minutes while I went in and dropped off my plastic bag of numberplate and shotgun cartridge 'evidence of littering'!! lolol . . silly, but I guess I should admit, I felt pretty scared walking the short distance around the corner from the car to the entrance door of the station. I don't get out much (certainly NEVER 'down town' at night) so I don't really know what it is like round there these days, but certainly when I used to work nearby, it wasn't the nicest/safest of areas. Glad to be safely back in the car with Sally and screwing the camcorder back on its mount. . drove round town, the Centre, Park Street, Broadmead etc. with the camcorder running. Very cold and quiet out. Back home not long after 9pm. . .ate bowls of cornflakes. . . touched base with BB. . . PCd video until bed around 1am. ps
2 - Up around 7:30am . . .just getting ready to walk when the next door neighbour called in with a large £5 carrier bag of chocolate. :o) . . .walked. Still freezing but a cloudless blue sunny sky . . . called the doctors surgery asking why I'd only been given so few tablets and did I actually have to see the doctor. Turns out that 'my' doctor I've had for years has left the practice, and I'm now under another one!!?? Seem to have no choice, so I made an appointment to see him tomorrow . . . PCd videos . . .ate three buttered hot cross buns and some turkish delight chocolate for a late 'lunch'. . .napped but poor sleep and woke around 4pm . . .Sis1 popped in for chats. Sally barked as she arrived and I could hear dogs barking next door! Blimey - the neighbour's got her dobermans then! . . poor Sis1 was forced to watch my videos. Yayyy - she bought me a 250g box of duty free tobacco back from her holiday with Sis2. Only £8? That can't be right - FAR too cheap? Mum happened to call and briefly touched base with us both . . . walked late when Sis1 had gone, after 8pm . . .back home to find an ansaphone message from LB, sounding as if something was urgent. I'd missed her and it looked as though she'd gone to do her hyper hop already. . . touched base with BB. . .looks as though theuy are having a bit of a party in the house down the road opposite. LOUD music. VERY loud on the CCTV camera's sensitive microphone. Tried not to be 'too' irritated, and thankfully they appeared to have a midnight curfew which I guess is fair enough. . . ate three sausage rolls and some pork breakfast roll sandwiches with a bag of crisps and then some chocolate . . . TVd until bed around 12:30am. s
3 - Up around 7:10am . . . walked and found 10p . . . returned BBs ansaphone call and touched base . . . got clean and sweet smelling and left Sally at home and drove to the doctors for my 9:40am appointment. . in my mind, many of my previous doctor appointments have - um - 'not gone well', and I've left the surgery feeling really down and as though the doctor didn't 'get' what I was saying/asking. Probably stepping WELL over the line of 'reasonable/rational behaviour', I took my MP3 player with me, and after being summoned by the intercom system, while walking down the corridor to the doctors room, I set it to record, before popping it back in my pocket!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That IS weird isn't it! Can't be many people SO paranoid that they'll go to the doctor, 'wired'. I just did it as an experiment (maybe a rehearsal for a 'dangerous'/similar attempt when I appear in court at the end of the month?) and so I'd be able to listen to what went wrong with the consultation THIS time. . as it turned out, I eventually came out of there feeling pretty happy with how it went. I think I like my new doctor much better than the old. He explained he'd called me in because he likes to consult long term anti depressant users at LEAST once a year to make sure they are doing ok. I explained how the last repeat prescription I got had been strangely/mistakenly doubled up, and that was why I'd not been back for a while - I'd been waiting until I was low on tablets. I also mentioned in the conversation how some of the various brands I've had from the pharmacy have definitely NOT been effective. I was amazed when he said that under such circumstances, he was more than happy to actually prescribe 'Prozac' if that worked for me, rather than allow the pharmacy to give me a generic. Cool. I explained my concerns about perhaps having built up a tolerance for the tablets (he said there was no evidence to suggest developing a tolerance was likely) and I went on to explain that I had recently come to the conclusion that I wished to have a break from the tablets (spring/summer is the best/safest time for me to give that a go) - on the clear understanding that if I got back 'into trouble' with my mood, I could run straight back to him for more tablets. I've already over the last week or so, begun a 'withdrawl' regime, which I'd decided would start with a one day on, one day off the tablets. He expressed appropriate concern but said if that was what I wanted to do, he had no objection and suggested a week of day on day off, followed by a period of one day on, two off before complete cessation. Any problems, come back and see him. Excellent. In fact, so happy was I with the consultation, I haven't even bothered listening to my recording of it (other than a few seconds, just to confirm, it worked very nicely!). It's rare for me to come out of there feeling positive. Thank you doctor *********, and in fact thank you doctor ***** for leaving! :o) . . Drove on to Wickes at Longwell Green and spent £12.98 on some undercoat paint and a big 5 litre tub of PVA. . . sat around mostly in front of the TV. Popped out briefly to have a look at the two dobermans the next door neighbour had just taken for a walk. Beautiful dogs, but she MUST be crazy! As I soon found out, she isn't quite that crazy after all. She'd decided they were too much of a handful and she was gonna be returning them, as had been agreed she could. Sensible but - well - I felt SO sorry for the dogs - oblivious, being passed around like that, in the hope of getting 'rid' of them. Awful sad. :o( . . . PCd . . . ate four small dirt-cheap scones, with a thick spread of butter (Flora margerine actually) and some jam. Wow - not that far off tasting like a 'Devon cream tea'. . for goodness sake! - the stress of one doctor visit and I'm wiped out for the rest of the day!! Napped. . . walked . . . vacuumed and tidied a little . . . did some more of the dishwashing chores while cooking four cheesburgers . . . touched base briefly with BB . . . PS popped round for chats. Within five minutes of me recounting the silliness with the numberplate and shotgun cartridge the other night, the phone rang. It was a woman from the police!!! She apologised for calling so late but was doing so to apologise that noone had yet been round to pick up 'the numberplates' that I'd rung up about this afternoon. Huh? No, actually, that was a couple of days ago, and I've already delivered it to Trinity Road because I knew you'd be busy! She thanked me and off she went. How bizarre. What to me is SO hard to understand about all that, is how it came to pass that the information was passed along in in SUCH a 'chinese whispers' way from police person to police person, and how it is apparantly someones job on a Friday night to sit on the phone and ring people up and apologise for not having done stuff! Utterly bizarre. So - the police are just the same as any big business (my years in the post office I'm thinking about of course) -just a beuracratic disorganised mess! god save us! :o( . . . ate biscuits and chocolate and even had a can of Fosters . . . ate bowls of cornflakes after PS had gone before bed around 1am. pcds
4 - Woken by Sally around 7:45am . . .walked and in the safe abscence of mocking schoolchildren, did a 'little' litter duty. The 'little', THIS morning, turned into four bulging carrier bags full - but it hardly made any impression on the 'landfill'! :o( . . .back home to find an ansaphone message from LB. She was home and had tobacco for me. :o) Popped straight up and picked up the carrier of 1.5Kg of Golden Virginia for £141, I think it was. :o) LBs boyfriend confirmed that the tobacco my sister brought back, really probably WAS that cheap over there! Amazing. . . PCd and surfed the Maplins and Aldi store sites looking at PC stuff. It's no good - this damn PC (my 'main' one in the back bedroom) is just grinding to an increasingly un-usable halt, for whatever reason. I've gotta do something - but which!!!!!!???? I've been mulling this problem over for a while. All the spyware/virus tests I've run have come up all clean - but so have all the hardware checks. Eventually made my mind up. I need to replace that 'number 2' hard disk that went corrupt a while ago, anyway. I think I'm gonna start off by buying a new hard drive (another cheap 200GB from the local store) and have a go at reinstalling everything from scratch (hours (days?)of hassle!) onto the new drive. That at least should give me a clue as to whether or not the un-identifiable problem is hardware or software - then I'll know where I stand. . . left Sally at home and walked to the local store and paid £69.99 for a (another!) new '200GB Maxtor ATA 133 7200rpm 8Mb cache' internal drive. . . straight back home to undo the PC and disconnect the 250GB drive completely, fit the new one as the master, and then set about reinstalling Windows, drivers, programs, etc, etc - again. WHAT a hassle! :o( Hours!!! . . Used some of the down time to have a play with my old, OLD 500Mhz PC parts (since I have a couple of spare small hard drives in a drawer and now a spare monitor - just lacks a soundcard) and succeeded in getting it all nicely back up and running with a fresh instal of Windows 98SE. Such a shame it can't be used for something useful. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I may have a plan of attempting to turn it into - um - a video recorder/monitor kinda thing for the CCTV camera? Dunno if it'll be possible and would at the minimum, require another TV card - although I AM planning to buy a digital one soon anyway, to maybe replace the one I already have in the living room. The guy in the local store said he was waiting for some to come in with a twin tuner. That'd be cool . . left the PC downloading Microsoft security updates (far too many hours on a dial up!) and cooked up four sausages, a heap of mushrooms and half a tin of baked beans, and ate with four pieces of bread and butter and then some chocolate . .a brief interlude up in the attic with the cam-corder, attempting to get some footage of the police helicopter circling low nearby . . napped for an hour or two until woken a little after 6pm by the sound of the modem automatically re-connecting!!? Despite the apparant disconnect, everything seemed in order, and all the security updates appeared to have completed succesfully. Set it downloading more updates and then walked . . .briefly touched base with BB . . carried on 're-building' the hard drive and all my settings and files and such, after having eventually reconnected the 250GB drive as a slave. . . LB called to touch base and for me to thank her again . . . touched base with BB . . .more PCing. Well - touch wood - I think it was a software problem all along! PC seems to be buzzing along quite nicely again at the moment. Wow - I'd forgotten it could be this quick. I hadn't realised how bad it had got! Coooool. :o) Fingers Crossed. . . left the PC working and grabbed a liver sausage sandwich and two bags of crisps around midnight. . . lots more to do, but the only major difficulty I've had so far is re-instating the Antivirus software (although my period of updates HAS recently expired and it needs replacing anyway.). . reinstaled the AV software from the original old, old, out of date CD (damn - the old out of date software can't find the registration/update server!) and then had a go at copying the entire contents of the directory of the more recent installation, straight in over the top. No - that won't work. DLLs in use! :o( Safe mode? Yep - that worked. Oooooh, ooooh, ooooh - it's updating - but - 'years' of definition files to update on a dial up?! That'll take a while!!! :o/ . . . PCd this until the early hours while the seemingly never ending updates continued to crawl through . . .eventually to bed around 2:30am leaving the PC connected and running. s
5 - Woken by Sally around 7:15am. Straight in to the PC to find it was still on line but the AV software was all crashed and unhappy. A couple of reboots later and it all looks fully updated and functional - and rather looks as though it's maybe giving me a 'free' year of continuing updates! Fingers crossed. How naughty. :o) . . . set the PC coping over more of my data files to the new master drive and then walked. Did another couple of carrier bags of 'litter duty'. . . straight back home to carry on my system rebuild, import e-mails, address books, favourites, etc, etc.In fact - I 'think' I'm even back in a position where I should be able to upload my journal. Well - so far so good. It's almost like having a new machine - and I've even switched over to my replacement keyboard that still has the letters on the keys at the moment, so lots less mistyping. Actually, quite a nice soft action to the keys as well. :o) . . .had a much needed break from the PC and drove to Snuff Mills with Sally - and an adjustable spanner in my pocket! The last couple of times I've walked up over Purdown near the communications tower, I've seen a stolen burned out motorcycle dumped up there, and it's been preying on my mind ever since. My PC chair (the one I pulled out of the guys skip down the road) doesn't have a spring action beneath the seat like I imagine it should, and despite fitting those rubber washers a while ago, is definitely too low for comfort. I've actually started to develop some unpleasant pain in both arms and I'm highly suspicious it may be as a result of trying to bend my arms the 'wrong way' over the edge of the desk to manipulate the mouse and such. Repetative Strain Injury? Anyway - for a while now I've concluded that if I could lay my hands on some old small motorcycle/moped parts, I could probably make use of the rear shock absorber springs to improve the chair. Well - that burned out motorcycle still had the springs on the back end. Brown with rust and the effects of the burning, but probably still good enough for what I want. So - I finally got round to walking all the way back up there with an adjustable spanner in my pocket (in the full knowledge that IF that little spanner was even able to manage the job, I'd definitely pay the price in bloody knuckles. I just couldn't face walking all the way up there carrying a heavy full socket set). . the bike wreck was still there so, feeling oh SO guilty about 'looting' like that, I set about attempting to unbolt both rear shock absorbers. Despite the rust and fire damage, I got them in the end - leaving a few drops of DNA evidence from my cut knuckles on the swinging arm! Walked all the way back to the car with a carrier bag containing both shock absorbers and with embarassingly oily, bloody hands. . . cut the shocks in half out on the patio with a hacksaw to free the springs, and put the useless bits straight in the bin. Dropped the bottom of the computer chair off, removed the by now crushed and useless rubber washers I'd put on, and without any hassle at all, slipped one of the shock absorber springs straight on beneath the seat, before putting it all back together. Yayyy - that works fine. Raises the seat height a couple of inches and gives me just a little bit of shock absorbing bounce when I sit down. Nice one. There just can't be anyone else in the world who would do such a thing can there? How my mind must work. Very weird. Just like my Dad! lololol . . . ate liver sausage sandwiches and then three thickly butter and jam covered scones . . . TVd . . napped for a couple of hours . . . walked. A group of around seven or eight 'older' (scarier!) youths were all congregated at the entrance to the field (where both street lights are out again) and I had to walk past them. Just inside the field parked up on the cycle path was a trials motorcycle with damage to the rear light area and no number plate. That's stolen - no question about it. As I walked away across the field I pulled out my mobile phone and called the police non emergency number and made another pointless report. I detoured and cut short my usual route around the field, in order to be able to attempt to keep an eye on the group, from a safe, relatively unnoticeable distance. Someone started the bike up and started 'ranting' it up and down the road - no lights, helmet, etc. How on earth do the people in those houses ignore this sort of stuff there, every night? Am I the only one left in the world who has a problem with this sort of stuff going on all around them? Finished making my call and eventually walked round the field and back towards the exit. Weird - they were all gone already, just leaving large wheel marks and 'dougnuts' in the grass. Typical. Sat around on a boulder and had a cigarette, just in case any police turned up so I could explain what'd been going on - but of course they didn't. Eventually returned home with the usual despair and frustration . . I couldn't resist! After having proved the camcorder CAN just about cope with night time footage from the car the other night, I ended up in the car and briefly cruising around the block, in the hope of maybe getting some 'on-the-road' footage of that stolen bike. Dunno where all those guys went so quick, but there was absolutely no sign of them anywhere - which was probably just as well. And NO - I'm NOT gonna make a habit of taking the car out and doing that - although, I just know from experience that from time to time I'm gonna witness SUCH outrageous stuff, it'll tempt me, just for 'the challenge' of attempting to capture the footage!!!! . . TVd the much hailed new BBC series 'Planet Earth' while drinking a can of Fosters. Wow. Fantastic. Entertaining and educational TV, like it should be, and mostly isn't these days. They ought to increase the licence fee at around the time they air such productions, then people wouldn't mind 'quite' so much. . . touched base with BB . . . PCd a bit of the 'maximum-optical-zoom/terribly shakey' police helicopter video footage I took from the attic the other day, just for fun (hardly original). I've just GOT to figure out a way of doing something to one of my tripods to enable me to get a smooth pan. No matter how hard I try, I just get jerks rather than a smooth flow. Needs 'damping' in some way somehow. Can't figure out what may work. Wrap it in rubber bands maybe? . . ate bowls of cornflakes, four buttered scones and a little chocolate . . . TVd until bed around 1am. ds
6 - Woken by Sally around 6:45am. Humph! Looks as though she's getting all set for her usual summer routine of depriving me of sleep! :o( . . . walked and filled a couple more carrier bags of litter. . . PCd this . . .set the PC doing a test DVD burn of my videos and then sanded down the dado rail thingy on the stairs wall and put on an undercoat of paint. Slapped on a little of the matt white emulsion I found in the back of the understairs cupboard, to the bit of wall beneath the rail. Not perfect, but sure looks better already. . . cooked and ate four sausages, half a tin of baked beans, two fried eggs and some mushrooms with four pieces of bread and butter . . BB called briefly before she starts her new temp. job . . .uh oh. The test burned DVD didn't work!? Have a missed a driver for the DVD writer or something? Installed the bundled software and had another go. Left the PC processing and napped for a couple of hours . . .Phew. The test DVD worked ok. Thank goodness for that. Sad man!! Ended up watching a couple of them - yet again!!! ??. . . walked and found a penny . . . Mum called to touch base . . . TVd . . BB called from work! . . . PCd until early. ps
7 - Woken by Sally around 7:30am. . . walked in the rain . . . dabbled with some of the 'stairwell building site' and started building up/levelling off the wall at the top of the stairs, with the first layer of plaster. .ate a banana . . smoothed off a couple of bits of the high wall on the right hand side of the stairs and then stuck on a couple of pieces of woodchip wallpaper I've had in a cupboard for probably more than ten years, to match the rest! . . . cut my hair and cleaned up . . . ate spam sandwiches and then the last three buttered scones with jam . . . BB called . . . napped . . . walked. A few degrees warmer and a bit of rain, and all of a sudden the frogs are out! Ignored one sat on the pavement on the way to the field, but had a good look around for more on the way home. Yayyy - spotted two hopping across the road (and one oh so very nearly got squished by a car as I watched!) and managed to catch them both, pop them in a poop scoop bag and carry them home. Passed at least one more, squished in the road, on the way home. :o( . rushed out into the garden and tipped the frogs out of the bag onto the garden by the pond. Heyyyyyy - I must have caught one male, one female. Somehow in the bag on the way home, the male had got hold of the female, and nothing was gonna dislodge him now. Guess I played matchmaker (whether SHE liked it or not!). :o). . . played in the garden with the camcorder and filmed two more mating frogs that were already out there. . . ate four buttered crumpets and some chocolate and PCd two more videos until around 4am!!!! Am I MAD?!!! s
8 - Woken by Sally around 8am. . . walked. Relocated a female frog from the gutter just down the road, into the back garden. .set a test DVD (a two hour one this time) burn going and then left the PC running for hours. . . sat around a bit too tired to do anything. TVd/PCd. .IHB called in. He's off work (he's a teacher) with stress depression type stuff again! Appartantly he'd 'shouted' at some of his pupils (twelve year old girls) who weren't doing what they were told, and they then went and complained to a senior teacher - and he was reprimanded!!!!!!!! Good god! A teacher - not allowed to shout at disobedient kids? That's part of their job description isn't it? What hope is there for this country when such utter madness prevails? What happens when no one is prepared to be a teacher any longer? Arrrrggggghhhhhh! . . told IHB about all my 'troubles' (with the local kids etc.). Not sure if my woes made him feel happier or worse with his lot, but he seemed to go pretty quiet and soon left! lolol. . . ate grilled spam sandwiches and then inevitably slept the rest of the day away until gone 7pm. . well- it sure took long enough to process, but the two hour capacity test burned DVD seemed to work ok in the end. 'Almost' unable to tell the difference in quality on my TV - but I think I'll be sticking to the one hour better quality ones nevertheless. . . walked just a little later than usual . . . BB called . . . PCd/TVd . . . ate spam, mayo, tomato, onion, grated cheese and lettuce sandwiches with two bags of crisps and then some chocolate before bed around 1am. s
9 - Woke earlier, snoozed on then woken by Sally around 6:45am . . .set the pc burning a DVD-R using the hard drive image I processed last night . . .walked and found 3p. Ugggh! The roads all around have turned into 'the killing fields'. Too many to count, dead frogs, squashed by the unfeeling traffic. Upsetting. :o(. . . sat around 'proof' watching the burned disc and wasting time until my ten o'clock dentist appointment. Getting on for half past nine, someone from the dentists surgery called to apologise and cancel my appointment! Apparantly, they'd had a break in last night, a vital piece of equipment AND some of the drills had been stolen, so they couldn't treat anyone at the moment!!!!??? Would you believe it! Pretty amazing I didn't find some of the drills littering the field I suppose! Why on earth would someone steal such things? Can't help but wonder if they'll be somehow making their way over to some eastern European country. Based on stuff I see on TV - this country appears to have become a haven for criminals from those countries!! :o( Made a replacement appointment for next week. . . . did a little laundry while sitting around mostly in front of the TV, waiting for the disk to finish burning. . damn that isn't right! Jitters!! ANOTHER wasted disk straight in the bin. :o(. . . ate the last of the mushrooms, fried with four pieces of bread and butter . . . burned another disk and I think this time it's succesfull. Immediately packaged it up and walked with Sally round the post office and mailed it to 'my captive audience' - Mum. :o) . . . slept until shortly before 7pm . . .walked . . . PCd a bit of this but not really in the mood . . .BB called briefly during her work break . . . TVd and drank the last tin of Fosters out of the fridge . . . ate bowls of cornflakes before bed around midnight. ds
10 - Woken by Sally just after 7am . . . walked . . . pretty much spent the day wrestling with burning copies of my videos! Gonna 'inflict copies' on a few people - whether they want them or not! lol (Dunno why!) . . Mum called to touch base and confirm she'd received the disc in the mail and was gonna try and resist, and save it to watch later this evening when there's nothing on TV. . .BB called briefly . . . ate a tin of microwaved stewed steak with four pieces of bread and butter . . . Headachey. left the PC still burning and napped for almost a couple of hours until a little after 5pm . . .finished off burning copies on pretty much the last of my blank discs and then PCd a bit of this . . . walked. Lot of kids and mayhem around the area so it seemed. Saw at least three seperate 'L' plated mopeds racing around with unhelmetted passengers on the back. One kid walking along with a girl, pushing his moped, stopped at the entrance to the field right next to where I was sat on a boulder smoking a cigarette, and said to the girl "If you love me, you'll get on the back." I guess she loved him. Off they went down the cycle path into the distance and then straight back out onto the roads and away. He didn't even offer to let her wear his helmet! An unhelmeted kid on a mini moto without lights was noisily riding around the area as I walked back from the field. I recognised that yellow mini moto. It's a friend of Little Xxxxxx who I got on film at the same time I got that footage of Little Xxxxxx for my 'Kids' video. Found 10p and a small, gold (I think) miniature 'watch chain' type bracelet on the way home, to add to my 'found jewelry' collection. All in all, it was one of those nights that kinda feels as though there'll be 'trouble'. Felt pretty paranoid by the time I got home and ended up watching the CCTV on the main TV!!. . . vacuumed just a little . . .ate a couple of defrosted and microwaved pastry meat pies with two bags of crisps . . . BB called . . . PS popped round (with chocolate! :o) ) for chats and TV. . Mum called to confirm the DVD I'd sent had worked ok, and she'd watched it. . Forced PS to take a copy of my DVDs, but he clearly didn't want them!! lololol. . . TVd/PCd until bed around 1:30am. aass.
11 - Woken by insistant Sally just before 8am . . . walked. Unsettling to pass a house brick, laying in the gutter next to a suprisingly UNdamaged neighbours' car, just a few paces down the road from home! Did a couple of carrier bags of litter duty. Found 3p. . . pottered briefly in the garden in a sunny spell and pulled a few weeds and such out. . .PCd this . . .listened to a little music . . . mustered up the energy in putting a hand to a little of the DIY 'building site'. Brushed just a touch of filler onto the joins of where I put up the new bits of woodchip wallpaper on the stairs wall, to help the joins disappear when it's eventually emulsioned. Worked nicely. . . Cut a couple of small wood shims, put in the fibreglass insulation and eventually put up the last couple bits of plasterboard above and next to the door frame in the back bedroom, to more or less complete that stud wall - bar all the finishing and plastering of course!!! . Mixed up a little plaster and used it like filler to roughly fill in a few of the gaps here and there where the plasterboard meets the bedroom ceiling and wall . . broke up the old bedroom cupboard door I've had laying around for ages, and managed to dismantle it in such a way that I could salvage the large sheets of hardboard from either side of the battens and corregated cardboard (they don't make em' like they use'to!). Cut a piece to fit in the panel above the door to the attic, on the 'corridor' side of the door, where I made a mistake with the studding woodwork and didn't get it quite straight. If I was to just fit a bit of plasterboard in there, it wouldn't look quite right and would actually protrude slightly out from the door frame - which it can't. My plan is that I 'should' be able to plaster over that hardboard sufficiently to make a good enough finish, and save me all the hassle in attempting to cut back the studding woodwork, which really would have been a nightmare. . got the insulation in and the hardboard all PVAd and nailed in position and then filled with a little plaster around the edges/ceiling etc. Yep - I think that's gonna work ok. :o) . It wasn't much - but it eventually felt good to have done at least 'something' to progress the building site again. I really need to get back into it and try and make greater progress . . vacuumed, cleared up and showered by around 6:15pm. . .walked and found 15p. Feels a totally different atmosphere to last night around the neighborhood. Quieter somehow. Hadn't eaten all day so decided to treat myself to a kebab and chips and walked round the shop with Sally on the way home. The road along which I walked has a long narrow straight between the parked cars, and then a bit of a curve up to a 'Give Way' crossroads junction. I was walking with Sally 'around the curve' when some nutcase came blasting down that road towards me in some ropey looking car, apparantly as fast as it was possible for the screaming engine to go. Just before entering the curve, he slammed the brakes on and locked up the wheels with that sickening 'tearing rubber' sound. My memory says just the front wheels, but I guess it must have been all of them? Thankfully he successfully negotiated the curve (if he hadn't, I'd likely not be here now typing this!) and even came to a revving halt at the junction, to the delight of the group of ne'er-do-well 'children' that were hanging around in the road there! Pungent smell of burning rubber reached my nostrils as I carried on walking, after having dutifully stopped and 'stared disapproval' at the idiot in the car. . Uggh - lots of people already in the shop. Placed my order and paid and then took Sally outside to wait, as is my habit, since they have a sign on the wall saying 'no dogs'. I've nevr had to wait SO long! Got trapped into talking to some dog loving old drunk woman, who eventually insisted on going into the chip shop and buying a sausage for Sally! I was stood outside that shop (back aching/empty stomach rumbling/humouring conversing drunks/hmmm - tax has long expired on that people carrier) for 30 minutes until around 8:15pm before at long, long last it was my turn and my kebab and chips was ready and I could pop in, grab the carrier bag and quickly make my much needed escape. . Just round the corner and a little way down the road, a girl was crouched down next to another (late teens/early twenties?), who was slumping all over the pavement, absolutely legless - out of it - drunk! Oh NO! The one who wasn't 'quite' so drunk, asked me to help her get her collapsed friend back up on her feet, because she couldn't manage it on her own!!!! Oh jeeze! I really, really, REALLY didn't want to get involved with any nonsense like this - especially with a light-head-empty-stomach, and a carrier bag of kebab and chips getting cold in one hand, and Sally's lead in the other!!! Nevertheless - if someone is collapsed on the pavement right in front of you, AND someone has picked on you to directly ask for your help, well - you haven't really got a choice have you!!!! :o( Have you? I haven't!!!!! :o( . felt extremely uncomfortable 'touching' someone like that - and hesitated trying to figure out what would be 'acceptable'! I ended up grabbing her right arm and trying to help haul her up onto her feet by that, but when someone is a dead weight like that, they are a HELL of a weight, and just hauling on an arm isn't gonna do the job at all and is quite likely to cause injury!! (Actually - the only other experience I can recall of having to attempt to 'support' someone who is a dead weight like that, is when I helped prop Dad up to eat something in bed, not long before he died! He was conscious - but didn't seem to realise he wasn't 'connecting' to his body! :o( ) No. No way were we gonna be able to get her to stand up like that. Pretty obvious to me that what was needed was someone stood behind her doing a bear hug type of lift - but of course no way was I gonna be doing THAT!!! She remained on the pavement, sort of in a slumped forward kneeling position with her head resting on the concrete, moaning a bit! . The girl with her explained they were heading for the pub up the road!!?? (Actually - I think she's had enough!) The girls boyfriend was in there. She asked "have you any credit?". Funny how young people take it SO utterly for granted that EVERYONE has a mobile phone. I lied (a rare event) and said no. She then asked if I'd stay with her collapsed friend while she went up the pub to find her boyfriend!!! WHAT?!!!! I wasn't keen on THAT idea AT ALL - but again, I didn't have much choice. I did however ask in a rather rude and forceful way, more than once, if the collapsed girl had 'only' been drinking, or had she done some drugs. (I just needed to know. If I was gonna be left on my own with her in the street like that, I just needed to know what I was dealing with - just in case. For some reason, whenever I witness people in such a state, I always worry they may be fixin to die!! It happens! Life IS that fragile!) Her friend was adamant she'd NOT done any drugs.

-//unfinished//-

I left them to it and headed home. The old guy (drunk too!) who'd apparantly just stopped to watch 'the show', seemed to want to trap me into chatting as he followed me! Eventually I realised who he was. He lives on the corner just over opposite and is the son of that kind old woman who died years ago, who used to donate some good, meaty, Sunday roast bones for Sheba. All of a sudden out of the blue he said that if I ever needed a lift anywhere, he could oblige. Huh? What the hell prompted that (besides the booze)? Bizarre. Generous, but bizarre. I thanked him as best I could, but pointed out that I had my own car thank you very much, and "I've GOT to dash - my kebab is getting cold. Bye." I didn't run - but I definitely hurried!! . .ate . . felt in a 'strange'(?) mood. All that nonsense earlier somehow - um - 'upset' me, I guess - certainly more than it 'should'. Not sure how - or in fact, actually - why?!! Hmmm - maybe? - I AM coming 'down' off the fluoxetine of course. . Wanted to be quiet and couldn't find anything on TV worth watching, and somehow just watching/listening to the CCTV picture almost all evening was 'more than enough', what with the police helicopter buzzing around, 'crazy' drivers in the street, and overheard snippets of yukky conversations of a few drunks as they walked by!??? (Why WAS she telling him to wait because she still had to do his belt up???!!!) If it wasn't so cold, and something that just is absolutely NOT done - certainly around here- I may have even ended up sat in the front garden watching the world go by! . . .touched base with BB . . . CCTVd, ate biscuits and chocolate, and almost fell asleep in my chair. Eventually to bed around midnight. . Slobodan Milosovice died this day. Good. s
12 - Woken by Sally just after 8am . . BB called to touch base . . walked on a light sprinkle of snow. Found a penny. . briefly touched base with Mum about a TVshow. . . PCd a bit of this while watching the Bahrain grand prix TV coverage. . . a few random things :- It appears the police have thankfully arrested the people responsible for that attempted robbery/murder and shotgun shooting on the 21st of February ; One of the decks on my old twin deck Amstrad video recorder has succumbed to the pressure of all this CCTV recording, and has stopped working ; my plan of careful, graduated withdrawl from my fluoextine perscription has been given up, and I've simply stopped taking it. I just found it too confusing when half asleep and ready for bed at the end of the day, trying to work out whether or not 'this' day was one when I was supposed to take it or not! ; I'm losing at least two more teeth - including one of the bottom ones at the very front, which would show if I ever dare to find cause to smile! . . . sat around listless in front of the TV . . . ate bowls of co-co pops . . . TVd/PCd . . . walked. Hardly a trace left of this mornings snow, but a biting cold wind. Found 2p. . . touched base with BB before the Planet Earth TV show. Actually ended up watching another show before that, about 'time', on one of those 'new' BBC channels that no-one ever seems to watch, but which I seem to have been finding rather interesting stuff on, on several occasions recently. . . cooked up four small cheese burgers after 10pm . . . TVd some more . . .touched base briefly with BB . . . ended up glued to the CCTV camera from around 12:30am. A car had gone speeding down the road, pursued by a police car, and then 'just' in view up the road, they both turned down a cul-de-sac! lolol Gottem!! Over the course of the next half an hour or so, at least another four police cars came storming up the road to join them, although a couple of the crews were clearly lacking directions and went sailing past the turning to the 'scene of the action' , before eventually racing back. Oooooh I was SO tempted to suddenly be an innocent passing dog walker! I even got my coat and shoes out ready, and stood briefly in the front garden listening to the 'just' audible shouts in the far distance, but it was so SO cold, and I imagine it would have been extremely difficult to be inconspicuous, hanging around with my camcorder at that time of night without getting in trouble, I ended up just sitting watching and listening. Wound the audio on the TV up as high as I dared in an attempt to catch whatever there was to hear, but all that proved was that somehow my CCTV system is 'just' picking up some weird radio station from somewhere!!? Things eventually settled down, and most of 'the troops' re-appeared from that side road and eventually drove off - but not the car they were chasing? I went to bed somewhere after 1am. s
13 - Woken by Sally earlier but managed to growl, groan and ignore her away. Eventually up with a raging headache shortly before 9am! I may be wrong, but coming off the fluoxetine seems to have returned me to my familiar, almost daily 'headaches' existance! :o( . . . walked and found 5p. . .mixed up another bucket load of plaster and continued the piecemeal levelling/build-up, of the uneven wall at the top of the stairs. A couple more like that and I should be in the market for some finishing plaster I think . .at last - got round to the fiddely work of putting in a couple more socket boxes for the back bedroom in the new partition wall. One more double for power and a single for a phone line or TV socket or whatever, mounted on a new noggin, complete with plastic conduits leading to the void beneath the floor, which will enable me to easily wire them up whenever I want. That's been holding me up from getting the plasterboard done on the back of that wall, in the 'corridor' to the attic. Once the wood glue and PVA has dried, I should be able to do that piece of plasterboard tomorrow. At last! . . . ate defrosted chicken sandwhichs and a bunch of biscuits . . . napped until just past 6pm. . .PCd this . . .walked and found a penny. On the way back home I passed three kids. There was a bit of conversation between them that I didn't hear, and then one of them said "No. He's the one everyone's egging." :o( I carried on walking, but it then occured to me to turn, catch up with those kids and simply attempt a civil conversation - in the hope of having two questions answered. Why?, and who is 'everybody'? Bizarrely as I turned and walked after them, at least one of the kids ran off, taunting 'You can't catch me'!!!! Well I was hardly trying to!!! Little twerp. Turned and returned home . . . BB called . . . had a quick 'poke' at screwing and gluing a couple of the stair treads, which have been creaking and driving me nuts. In fact - that staircase is showing its age and is actually rather worryingly 'flexible', and will probably see some more screws and glue before I'm done with it! . . . TV/CCTV/PCd and somehow ended up using that CCTV footage from last night for a rather pointless video. ("It's The Police!". "How many?". "Well - ALL of them I think!"). . .PCd until gone 3am!! Touched base with BB briefly before exhausted to bed. The minute my head hit the pillow, I felt mentally alert, and couldn't sleep for ages. s
14 - Woken by Sally around 7:15am!! Tired! . . .walked and found 3p and another silver, kinda elongated-horseshoe type earring . . . did the preparatory work and succeeded in nailing up two more half sheets of plasterboard on the back of the new stud wall. Those are the last large bits of plasterboard I had left until I buy some more. I am rather deliberately trying to use up all the bits and pieces I've had laying around for ages, before working out what I need to buy to continue. Makes things a lot easier having less clutter around getting in the way of the building works. . had a bit of a look at the electrics and suddenly realised that with that new socket box with the conduits in place, with a bit of luck, I may be able to make relatively minimal alterations and actually wire up the new sockets into the ring - and maybe even extend the ring up to the socket boxes in the attic. Lifted another floorboard and yayyyy. I was 'just' able to reach under the floor to one of the cables which actually ran through the joist perfectly, to disconnect and pull through and poke up into the new power socket. LOTS of work, putting in new runs all over the place and wiring up all the new sockets before the final turning off of the mains and hooking everything up. Time consuming - but I always find doing wiring almost 'enjoyable'. Even succeeded in doing away with that old socket box I'd been forced to just leave connected under the floorboards. Turned the power back on and tested all the sockets and everything seemed to be fine. AT LAST I can get rid of that dangling extension lead which gave me power for my tools up in the attic. :o) That all went rather well and was a bit of a bonus on what I'd planned to do today. Cool. It's all oh SO slow, but bit by tiny bit it's all starting to come together, and the 'building site' mess is sort of gradually being pushed back up into the attic rather than all over the house. . . cleaned up and ate a microwaved tin of cheap Irish stew type stuff with five pieces (using up all the crusts) of bread and butter around 4pm. . .napped until just after 7pm . . .walked . . .touched base with BB . . . TVd and even watched a couple of tracks of my own DVD! . . .ate coffee sponge and then corned beef, onion, tomato and lettuce sandwiches around midnight. . . to bed at 1am. s
15 - Woken by Sally around 7am . . . walked and found a penny . . . trimmed my hair and got all clean and sweet smelling (or at least as close as I ever get) . .briefly touched base with Mum to get Sis2s address . .chewed an Annadin tablet in an attempt to deaden my mouth a little, before my dental check up. . left Sally at home and walked round the Post Office and mailed a couple of my DVDs. Walked on to the dentist and got there five minutes early for my 10:20am checkup appointment. Didn't get in to see the dentist until getting on for 11am - although on this occasion I didn't particularly mind because there was an interesting PC magazine on the table in the waiting room. Eventually in to see the dentist and told him about my latest problems - but explained I was eager to keep the bad teeth for as long as was possible, rather than have him pull them straight out (because I still need to be able to eat occasionally!!! Soup is NOT a 'meal'! ). He pretty much shook his head and said there was nothing much he could do, given my gum disease caused by smoking. Things have gone too far and there really is no saving any of them. :o( All he could do was give them a clean. There was a bit of discussion about eventually having a denture, but the NHS options are severly limited.. He also explained how it is possible to have metal pins screwed into your jaw and false teeth mounted on each of them, although that would have to be done privately and would cost thousands - although apparantly I only have enough bone in my lower jaw to be able to have that done!!? . . Oh myyyyyyyy GOD!!!!! That was THE most painful clean I have EVER had (although I think because of the all-round sensitivity of my gums, rather than any 'roughness' on his part!) I was having SUCH a hard time, I couldn't help continually flinching, and had to keep telling him to stop! I was (embarassingly) SUCH a poor patient (wimp!) , I eventually got a jab to help with the pain I think - but it didn't! I was given another, antibiotic jab, to assist in fighting the abcess type infection beneath my lower front tooth. . paid the £15.04 NHS fee and was soon dribbling home. . . emptied everything out of the understairs cupboard and screwed and glued the rest of the stair treads before packing everything back in the cupboard. . . ate corned beef, onion, tomato and lettuce sandwiches with two bags of crisps. . .yet another delivery guy called at the door asking me to accept a neighbours parcel. . napped until around 6:15pm. . .walked. A small group of kids was noisily hanging around on the corner opposite, and then I passed a larger bunch comming up the road as I set off. One of them with a hood up and his face also covered made a few 'comments' and then after I passed and was carrying on my way, said something which included " windows ".?. "your house" .?. . I 'think' it was a threat of what they were about to do! :o( What could I do? Follow them back up the street? Couldn't really could I. I carried on walking Sally 'as usual' (SO up tight!) - although I admit I DID cut short my sit on the bench by the swings for a cigarette, to rush back home. Thankfully everything was ok. . quickly popped next doors parcel round . . . climbed up in the attic and had a go at filming the moon. . . touched base with BB . . . PCd the moon footage until getting on for 4am and eventually came up with another video. Ha. :o) .
16 - Woken by Sally around 9:30am. . . .walked late . . . Mum called . . . watched my moon video again. That expression on my face at the end makes me laugh every time. :o) . . . put in a bit of time on the preparatory scraping and filling of all the holes on the stairs . . . ate corned beef, onion, tomato and lettuce sandwiches with two bags of crisps, followed by a bunch of biscuits around 3:30pm. . . napped until just before 7pm . . .walked . . .touched base with BB. . . put in some more work on the stairs but ended up having to stop and sit and watch the end of a TV documentary on the Tony Martin case (the guy who lives in an isolated farm and who shot a couple of 'B&E' burglars - and was then convicted of murder!). All this nonsense that's been happening to me of late, made me watch that with a rather different attitude than I may have before. If I'd been in the jury that convicted him - I just couldn't have found him guilty - no matter how much evidence against him. In fact, it amazes me that the two surviving burglars weren't charged and convicted of some sort of contributary manslaughter charge, because it was their 'code of silence' denial of being with anyone else, that was likely a key factor in the death of the young burglar that Martin shot. He may have survived if he got rapid medical assistance. Yep - they should have ensured his 'impartial' jury, each had personal experience of what it is like to have been the 'victim' of ongoing hassle where the police can't/won't help - they should have chosen people who have experienced having some potential attacker in their home, and are familiar with the HUGE psychological effect that has on ones life. I've had a taste of that. I was absolutely glued to the TV, watching every tiny micro-expression on Tony Martin's face as he was interviewed. I understood (with great sadness) MUCH more about what he was saying (and NOT saying!). :o( Funny thing was, he was eventually released on some appeal-technicality where they said he was suffering paranoia at the time, or some such. I'm glad that got him out, but - no. No way. I've had to wrestle with my own fear and suspicion of 'paranoid delusions' of late, and the conclusion I've come to (which no one will understand unless they've experienced such things) is that it is absolutely NOT just 'paranoia'. It CAN'T be paranoia when things ARE actually happening to you! It only appears to be paranoia to others, when they haven't actually experienced the day in, day out reality of 'the incidents'. There is something about all this, that is linked to my recent bizarre behaviour (OF COURSE I'm aware!) of running around loaded up with 'electronic countermeasures', attempting to record everything that happens around me. Don't anyone DARE to suggest that I am 'overly' paranoid - I have the video footage/audio files to prove otherwise! Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? - well now maybe THAT is more likely! :o( There was a thing on the news the other day, about how the people that lived near that oil terminal explosion place, are taking legal action to receive compensation, and are citing PTSD as a route to 'big bucks'. I am inclined to think, that having some guy come into your living room and beat you up, and then put the word out on the street that you are a paedophile, is far more likley to cause PTSD than a one-off big bang in the distance! Should I have got myself a lawyer? . . the Tony Martin interview pretty much ended up with him (fighting back tears) saying how he still lives on his isolated farm, because "maybe it's something to do with being English", but he will NOT be forced out of his home by the intimidation of the barbarians. How well I undertsood THAT! . . briefly touched base with Mum . . . more sanding and filling on the stairs . . . called it quits at midnight. Wow - the stairs feel SO much better and more sturdy already. Hang on though - they are still creaking!?? Ooops - no - my mistake - that's my knees creaking!!!!!!!?????? :o( . . . ate sausage rolls and crisps before bed in the early hours. s
17 - Woken by Sally around 8:30am. . .walked . . .TVd a bit and got sucked in to having a go at recording a little camcorder footage of two 'youths' who appeared on the street corner opposite, acting in a strangely/oh SO noticeably 'suspicious' way. Turned out they'd chosen THAT corner to stand on to roll and partially smoke a joint - in full view of the world passing by, AND a nearby weird guy's CCTV camera!! Nuts! . . . worked on the stiars some more and sanded down all the filler and eventually painted on a layer of undercoat. I'm fully aware that it'll all get worn off as Sally and I go tramping up and down, but it'll look better than it has done for years, nevertheless. Actually, in a weird way, it's a psychological thing. I just needed to brighten it up and make it look a 'little' better, to make it feel as though I'm making some progress, and to encourage me to keep going at all the rest of the work that needs doing in EVERY room! . . It also made for an interesting video attempt. lolol I put the camcorder on a tripod, recording at the bottom of the stairs while I worked, and actually ran off two complete hour long tapes (but wouldn't you know it - the second tape ran out during the 'best', painting bit!). . . ate sausage rolls and bowls of cornflakes . .I just HAD to lay down and nap - but how/where?!! I couldn't go upstairs for at least six hours!? Pulled out an old dust covered sleeping bag from under the stairs, and a cushion from the conservatory and somehow managed a bit of a sleep on the living room floor in front of the fireplace. Brrrrrrr. Draughty! . . . walked . . PCd a bit with the footage of the dope smokers on the corner from this morning, and eventually came up with a video ("Don't bogart that joint - my friend. Pass it over to me" etc etc) . . . touched base with BB . . . PS popped round for chats and biscuits. He strongly advised me NOT to upload the 'smokers' video, in case it brought me trouble of some sort. I guess he's probably right but what a crazy world. Guys can stand on a street corner in full view of the world and my CCTV camera and smoke their illegal stuff - but I gotta make sure 'I protect them(/me)'! He's probably right, but I'm not sure I'm prepared to just delete that video. It's too amusing. I may have a go at censoring it somehow if I can be bothered with the hours it'd take . . . touched base with BB . . . PCd until early. ss
18 - Woken by Sally around 8:40am. . .BB called to say good mornin' . . . walked and found 2p . . . sat around not really wanting to do too much, and ended up playing the couple of hours of 'stairs' camcorder footage over to the PC, and then re-recording it at x20 speed!! Eventually mustered the energy to do the mountain of dishwashing and then tidied up the kitchen a little and wiped away the layers of white sanded-down-filler-dust. . . cooked up chips and ate them with a rice-vinegared chopped salad of the remaining lettuce and tomatoes with some onion. Made a nice change. . . napped for a couple of hours until around 6:15pm. PCd and briefly dabbled with the stairs footage and began trimming it down to fit the music I'd chosen . . walked. Still uncomfortably cold in that stiff easterly breeze. :o( . . . PCd more. IF I actually carry on doing these crazy videos (and I have to admit, I AM enjoying doing them) - I think I'm gonna try and make a habit of having 'the bit on the end' - for the smile. :o) . . . touched base briefly with BB ("I can't talk now! I'm doing a possible videOwwwoooo!") . . .changed into my work overalls/shoes for 'continuity', set up an extra spotlight dangerously perched on top of the kitchen door pointing up the stairs for better lighting, and then filmed the silly bit to go on the end of the video. . . ate the rest of the chopped salad in sandwiches with two bags of crisps while the PC was saving the 'High Quality' movie . . .PCd more for hours and eventually uploaded the finished thumbnail version. .touched base with BB like an excited child, and presented my latest video. lolol How sad am I!!!! lolol . . .ate bowls of co-co pops before eventually to bed in the early hours. ss
19 - Woken by Sally earlier, growled her away then up at 9:30am. . .walked late . . . PCd this . . .TVd . . . ended up PCing, attempting to 'modify' video for hours! Blimey - it's harder than it looks, HUGELY time consuming, and on or just over the limits of my hardware/software!! Lots of crashing! . . . ate a handful of bisuits just to keep me going and then napped until gone 7pm . . .walked . . . TVd . . . touched base briefly with BB . . . PCd video for hours more but getting no-where! . . . ate corned beef sandwiches and crisps . . . PCd until long past 4am with absolutely nothing to show for it!ss
20 - Woken by Sally earlier then up around 8:45am . . .walked . . . surfed looking at PC stuff (TV cards mostly) . . . left Sally at home and walked up the local PC store to see if he had in the digital TV tuners he said he was expecting. He didn't. :o( Ended up buying a Samsung 16x DVD-RW combo drive for £38, and two removable 'hard drive caddies' for £26.20 . . . surfed lots more looking at tuners and CCTV cards and such . . . not particularly hungry, which is weird considering I hardly ate anything yesterday. Think I have a very slight stomach upset maybe. . Napped the rest of the afternoon away until just before 6pm . . .walked. . . PCd . . .touched base with BB briefly before carrying on PCing for hours . . . cooked up two of those cheap ham rings with chips around midnight while the PC saved a big file, before PCing again until around 2am. Uploaded the tests video that I'd been working on, for what their worth, and touched base with BB to test her reaction to the silliness. She laughed - but not at what I'd spent all those hours doing. I think she would have laughed just as much if I'd not modified any of it anyway! But - yeah - I guess the behaviour of those MPs IS pretty laughable in its own right. s
21 - Woken by Sally earlier several times before finally up around 8:30am . . . walked . . . tried to resist, and do something else, but ended up PCing attempting to modify video again. Wow - my mouse arm is REALLY VERY painful!!!!? Put in hours on attempting to censor the 'smokers' video I knocked up the other day. It IS do-able, but it is unbelieveably time consuming, tedious and difficult. Worked straight through until getting on for 2pm before all of a sudden admitting defeat, and just shutting the PC down in disgust, without saving what I'd been working on! What a terrible waste of time! . . .ate corned beef sandwiches and two bags of crisps and some chocolate . . . TVd a Hill Street Blues episode and then back to bed to try and sleep off my headache and just be warm for a bit . . . slept until woken by Sally at 6:30pm, still headachey. . .PCd a bit of this while sucking an annadin tablet . . . walked. On the way back from the field, a group of in excess of ten 'children' were playing in the middle of the road, in the street along which I am 'no longer allowed' to walk. As I walked my new 'usual' route, to avoid that street, they spotted me and hurled insults after me. I heard 'Binman', 'Egghead' and 'Wanker' called out at me - the latter being called out by a female voice!! :o( . . .PCd and just couldn't let it rest!! After the abuse earlier, I was in such an angry mood, I was almost tempted to just upload the uncensored 'smokers' video and be damned. I rightfully managed to resist (actually, after all these hours attempting to censor those guys faces, I've actually grown quite fond of them - the guy with the hat especially!! Hillarious analysing frame by frame, all the social/peer pressure/cultural/sub-cultural body-language stuff they were unconsciously doing lol) and put in several more hours attempting to create a 'gave-up-half-way-through', censored version, to include the silly test bits nonsense I'd been playing with last night. . . BB had the misfortune of calling, more than once during all this hair-pulling struggle, and didn't get much of a conversation out of me, to say the least!!! . . .this is all getting out of hand!! Eventually reached my 'that'll-HAVE-to-do' video around midnight, and PCd a bit of this as the file slowly uploaded (and then deleted the 'tests video' from yesterday). Sheesh - and at that resolution, you can hardly see any of what I 've spent the last three days playing with!! lolololol Never again!! . . . defrosted some chicken and ate chicken sandwiches and crisps around 3am! s
22 - Woken (eventually) by insistant Sally around 8:45am . . .walked and found 2p . . balanced my accounts . . . surfed Maplins and such . . . left Sally at home and drove up Kingswood to bank this months £50 PSB win. Intended to drive on and do a major shop, but couldn't face it and ended up just buying a handful of things (bread and butter mostly) to tide me over. On the way back to the car with my carrier bags I passed a solicitors office, and on the spur of the moment, popped in to ask a silly question. Something along the lines of, is it wise for the victim of an assault to seek legal counsel - although I ended up asking in such a roundabout bumbling way, I'm not certain the receptionist fully understood. Suffice it to say, her answer was that at that 'practice', they only represent the 'accused' (guilty!). Boo, hiss. . . ate three cheap pasties . . . drove with Sally to the old disused railway station on the cycle path (out toward Keynsham) and walked along the path as far as the river. I've seen lots of lambing sheep in those fields before now, and was hoping to do some videoing. Couldn't believe it - apart from a bunch of horses here and there all unaturally wearing coats, there was absolutely no 'stock' of any description in any of the fields anywhere in sight!? Weird? . . . back home by late afternoon. Ate three buttered hot cross buns with coffee . . . napped until gone 7pm. . . walked and found 2p. As I walked along the cycle path towards the first corner of the field, a couple of people were walking along in the dark towards me with another three or so, a short distance behind them. The first group stopped near the corner of the field as if waiting for the others to catch up. As I walked past, I overheard one asking the others, how long they'd been there. All seemed innocent enough until I realised they weren't going anywhere but were just continuing to hang around there in the darkness. As I carried on walking I became aware of even more people (just shadows in the dark) arriving in the field and 'hanging around'! Walking back down the field I passed another two people (at least one sat on the wet ground) and overheard one say to the other "Uhh - it's ok. It's just a dog walker. I thought it was a policeman!". Walking further on down the field, parallel with the road, I noticed a car pulling up in the street in a slightly out of the ordinary way. Two guys got out and entered the field and walked up past me, as the driver parked the car and turned off the lights and engine and stayed IN the car waiting. . . to cut a long story short, I eventually walked back up the field towards the boulders and sat for a cigarette (the seat by the swings was occupied by kids) and watched what was gonna happen on the opposite side - because 'something' was surely about to. I counted twelve shadows hanging around in the field (I think the real figure was greater than that). As I sat there with my cigarette watching the bizarre sight of all these shifty shadows waiting and wandering around in the distance (didn't take more than a moment to confirm the video camera was useless in such darkness) , all of a sudden as if on some hidden cue, the shadows all rapidly took turns to suddenly merge with a couple of other shadows before quickly all peeling off and going in different directions their seperate ways (some on foot, some on bikes)! My description of these events doesn't do them justice. Utterly bizarre!! My assessment - multiple drug deal/delivery! Perfect place I guess. SO many ways to escape in the darkness - would take a HUGE team of police to attempt a bust. . SO wish I could have got all that on film. No matter how often I say it, I never cease to be amazed by the goings-on I witness over that field. At least a couple of the shadows lingered in the dark when all the rest had gone, and from the pattern of the light from a lighter, I reckon they were 'skinning up'. Eventually headed home and found a wooly hat on the way. . . touched base with BB . . . PCd just a bit of this but soon caved in and ended up just listening to music . . ate co-co pops . . BB called . . . to bed around 1am. s
23 - Woken by Sally around 8:30am. Damn - that's too late! I'd been half planning to do a 'proper' rehearsal for next week of getting down town on the bus and finding the magistrates court by the time I'll need to. Oh well. . . BB called and shared some bad news she'd had since we last spoke a few hours ago! Looks like her dad has lymph cancer! :o(. . . walked. Spotted a 'roach' (with a filter? That's weird) in the grass, to support my suspicions about what I'd seen last night. Well - looks as though I missed the 'real' action over there. Lots of twin tyre marks in the grass and mud all over the place, from where a car was obviously driven around and across the rugby pitches. Must have been a small car but from the tracks and a bit of contact damage to the pavement, it 'just' squeezed through between the boulders that have been moved aside by the yobs, on the edge of the field. I did test those boulders once, they were FAR too heavy to attempt to move back. It'd need a team of motivated people (you'd have thought the rugby club guys would have done it to save all the damage to their pitch?) or more appropriately a JCB!! . . . sat around trying to motivate myself to get on and do some of the DIY - or something/ANYTHING - but I failed and just sat around and PCd/TVd!! . . .Mum called to touch base, all excited that the Johnny Mathis club had rushed out details of a handful of concert venues for later in the year (quite probably his last visit to this country given his age and health). . .TVd. Wow - a little good news out of Iraq for a change. Norman Kember and the remaining surviving peace activist hostages have been 'released'! :o) . . . ate onion and corned beef sandwiches and four buttered hot cross buns . . . napped until shortly before 6pm . . . PCd a bit of this . . . touched base with BB . . .local news item on TV about the police in Bath trialing small (helmet mounted) video cameras for evidence gathering. Wonder if they'd let me borrow one for when I walk the dog at night? lol . .<<<I typed this before walking the dog. Was it tempting fate? Little did I know how much I could have used one this evening!!! :o( . . on the way to the field with Sally, as I rounded the corner near the chip shop, a group of nine youths which included little Xxxxxx were stood on the corner near the pedestrian crossing. After the abuse I'd received the other night, I DID have my MP3 player recording in my pocket, and I can 'just' be heard saying to Sally as I saw them blocking my route "It's gonna be difficult to avoid THIS one Sally woof!". I walked past them without saying anything. One of them finally saw that my rubber torch was not a Stanley Knife as they'd previously thought and announced it to the group. I crossed the main road on the pelican crossing. I'd just reached the other side of the road when a hail of stones hit the ground next to me. They just missed me. I think Sally was maybe hit by a ricochet - she was definitely unnerved. So - I'm inncoently walking down the street, when I'm stoned by an abuse-shouting, jeering mob of 'children'!!!!!!!!!! Am I supposed to just keep walking and ignore this? How can you ignore being stoned like that? What can/should I do? Of course I pulled out the video camera and had a good go at filming them. They all covered their faces with their hoods and wandered back off up past the chip shop shouting some abuse and then just stayed there as I filmed them! The attempt at filming proved fruitless because I was on the opposite side of the main road with all the passing traffic, and all I got was some blurred shadows in the dark in the distance and lots of traffic noise. :o( I eventually gave up and carried on with Sally towards the field. Pretty sure another stone or two were thrown after me, but they were pretty poor shots and I was some distance away. . as I started to walk across the field (the rugby players were out training), the group of kids had followed me and were all stood on the cycle path at the entrance to the field shouting 'things' out after me. It was my intention to just keep walking, but amongst the abuse, one of them called out "come on lets talk about it" - so I hooked Sally back up on the lead and headed in their direction, at which point they all ran off down the road with hollaring and more abuse. I followed them back up to the main road and as they all stood milling around outside the chip shop, once again stood behind the railings adjacent to the pedestrian crossing at which point I rang the local police non-emergency number and attempted to report what was happening, in the (naive) expectation that the police would send a car out. I filmed them for quite a while but theyy all just milled around there, so eventually I turned the camera off, eager not to run out of tape or battery charge. With the camcorder back in my pocket, I began to roll a cigarette. One of the kids broke away from the group, walked in my direction up to the corner on the opposite side of the main road, and proceeded to hurl two more handfuls of stones over at me (and poor Sally of course! Hard to sheild her, but I tried.) Typical - missed getting THAT on the camcorder!! Grrrrr! (At least the MP3 player got a good recording of the jangling from the railings as all the stones hit them/me/Sally.) . .

-//unfinished//-

walked

three youths in a car, scared me to death by pulling across next to me, blocking the main road!! They asked if I was having trouble and then when I explained, chased off in the car after some of the kids!! Who the hell were they? My god it's turning into a bloody war zone out here!

Minutes later they pulled up again and said they'd chased a couple of the kids to their homes!! Offered my thanks but warned them NOT to get involved.

. . . Called the police, they didn't come blah blah blah. What exactly does it take for me to get some bloody help here??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
evidence?/horror movie (5.42MB)

-//unfinished//-

touched base with BB and although I was determined not to talk about it, ended up talking about all tonights unpleasantness - at length. Sorry. :o( . . . CCTVd until bed around 2am. :o( sss
24 - Woken by Sally around 8am. . . walked. Drizzly. Just down the road I spotted a pair of mating frogs crouched in the gutter next to the wheel of a parked car. Not a safe place for them to be! Ended up having to pop them in a poop scoop bag and quickly race back home to put them in the back garden (although my pond is looking pretty gungy green again! :o( ) . heyyy. The lady next door has got herself an American bulldog puppy, a few months old. Very cute. Found 2p. Handfuls of 'stones' were littering the pavement outside the chip shop! I almost took a photo! :o( . . . PCd this in between attempting to phone the CPS, Case Officer and local schools officer. I'm desperate. I need the CPS to be aware of this ongoing - um - what would you call it - intimidation? (Torture more like!) - before next weeks court appearance. .Someone from the CPS DID actually quite rapidly call me back, but their response was that I should be calling the 'case officer' and getting her to submit a further statement to them (before next weeks case!). . usual inability to be able to contact anyone on the phone, and ended up having to leave messages - one on the local school PCs ansaphone, and one via the 'receptionist' ("I'll e-mail her asking her to call you" ) for the case officer! . . . PCd and brought My Hood Page up to date-ish so I'd be able to more easily list the more noteworthy incidents - IF I ever get to talk to a police officer, EVER!!!!! Grrrrr :o(. . . TVd/PCd sat around feeling fed up. Around 1:30pm the local schools officer returned my call and explained that he was currently on a course and as such there was nothing he could do at the moment oyther than recommend I contact the local beat manager, PC such and such. I called attempting to speak to him but he wasn't available. Whoever the police officer was that answered the phone, was like a breath of fresh air! After he'd heard an abridged version of the WHOLE story, he suggested the original 'advice' I'd been given (months ago) about how without the kids names and addresses there was nothing they could do, was grossly inappropriate and incited me to take the law into my own hands! He used the term 'witness intimidation' when referring to what was now happening to me. He said that I should dial 999 rather than the non emergency number, when such things as last night happen!!!! (Are you sure? It's hardly crime of the century is it!). He made some notes to e-mail or pass on to the PC beat manager and strongly suggested I should write a complaint to the cheif constable/my MP etc, etc. Yeah - ok - maybe AFTER next week. After I know whether or not he gets away with it. I've warned BB - one way or another, the outcome of next week, whichever way it plays out, is going to be one of those 'pivotal' moments in my life. :o( . . . popped round the post box and put a mothers day card in the mail. I haven't been down to see her in the longest time, but I just can't face the day long outing and, to be honest more than anything, the inevitable requirement to 'go out' for a meal. If it wasn't for THAT, I'd not mind so much going down. :o( . . no appetite. Oh no!! Looks as though there is something wrong with the hot water on my central heating boiler! Cold. No ignition - but the heating still works. :o( . Napped until around 6pm . . .surfed Maplins, CCTV cameras mostly. . .Well - so much for all those phone calls to various police people earlier! Nothing! . . walked in the rain. 'Almost' got away with it without incident - but then returning from the field, a large group (including Little Xxxxxx and several of the others from last night - only recognised because of their clothing after my having studied the camcorder footage I took) were all over the fence in the school grounds near the pelican crossing. Wanna know what it's like to walk my dog these days? What I have to put up with 'most' evenings? Here's a pretty good example (converted to small, low quality) of tonights 'edited highlights' from that - what - 50 yard stretch of the walk, as recorded on my MP3 player clutched in my right hand. :o( AbuseEdits_24-03-06_s.WAV If it's even audible at this quality, the voice that can be heard to say 'Ssupmaan' at around the 7 second mark is the voice of Little Xxxxxx as he walked towards me with that 'come on then' sort of open armed body language gesture! . . . PCd this. It was either that or - well - have a bit of a cry actually. :o( Still no appetite and getting a bit wobbly through lack of food. . .PS popped round for chats and biscuits, etc. (and was exposed to much paranoid CCTV watching. :o( ). . BB called . . eventually ate a bunch of biscuits and then a couple of microwaved ham and cheese pastry slices . . . touched base with BB . . . too wound up to feel tired and TVd/PCd until gone 5am before bed!! ss
25 - Woken by Sally before 8am . .Walked. Felt real sunny and warm out - actually almost like a spring day. . . disconnected the old twin deck VCR from everything and took all the case parts off in an attempt to see if there is any obvious reason for why the second deck has stopped working. Blimey! The ‘tested by’ date on the inside of the case was somewhere in the mid 1990s. Amazing the thing is still working at all. I reckon Amstrad stuff is underrated. I think they really made good, budget kit. . . predictably the thing was full of a layer of dust, but what did surprise me somewhat was the couple of dust covered miniature cobwebs!!! .. . Mum called to touch base and say the mothers day card I’d sent had arrived. I apologised with great guilt for not going down tomorrow. :o( . . so much for the spring day. Soon grey and overcast - AGAIN! . Gently brushed and vacuumed out as much of the dust from the inside of the VCR as I could, before ‘touching’ a few of the moving parts with a drop of fine oil. Disappointing there was nothing visibly broken to fix or confirm I need to buy a replacement. (If I ever buy a replacement, it'll have to be a hard drive one of course.) Less disappointing when it appeared to want to try and start working again! Ooooh, oooh. :o) Cleaned it all (wow-didn’t know how bright that display could be), put it all back together and ran the head cleaner through both decks a bunch of times. Fingers crossed. Sorted through my box of remaining old video tapes and dug out a small stack of all the 240 minutes ones, irrespective of what may have been on them that I once thought was worth saving. My priorities have changed. :o( I need to get into a proper routine of tape rotation if I’m gonna get serious about this CCTV ‘evidence gathering’ stuff. . sorted through my bulging four ring binder of plastic folders containing all my ‘equipment’ instruction manuals, and finally located the old VCR instructions. Blimey – I knew it was possible to set the machine to record on both decks one after the other until both tapes were full, giving a total LP record duration with 240 minute tapes, of 16 hours (that was why I’d dug out the manual - for how), but I didn’t realise it was also designed to actually be used for CCTV surveillance if desired. It has a ‘Continuous - LOOP’ setting for goodness sake! I can set the thing recording through both tapes, and never touch it ever again!! It comes to the end of a tape, automatically rewinds while the other tape has taken over – and then the whole process loops – continually, until it or the tapes self destruct!!! Coool. Better give that a try then. :o) . . . ate warmed corned beef mashed with chopped onion, sandwiches with two bags of crisps. . . back to bed to catch upon lost sleep. . . PCd and surfed more components and camera stuff. Now I've had some hands-on experience and know a little more about the equipment I’ve got and its limitations, I'm not so happy with it – I want better, to ‘fill all the gaps’ kinda! Oh wow! I hadn’t thought of that. You can just use the camcorder as a VCR and plug an externally powered separate camera and microphone into the thing! Now THAT is clever and opens up a whole new world of possibilities with all those cheap miniature cameras that are available. Wouldn't take a huge amount of work or money to knock up a 'torch' (I have a couple of those old big rubber ones knocking around) - the reflector of which could actually be a small low light camera, and just have a wire leading to the camcorder, running away in a pocket. That could be VERY inconspicuous and effective. Wow - how tempting! In fact, that sort of set up with a cheap bullet camera would have been SUCH a better solution for in the car too. Live and learn. . . Walked. Caught out in heavy rain. . walking up the field in the dark towards the poop scoop bin, after having just armed myself with a 'bagged deposit', a small truck pulled up on the road at the top of the field opposite the pub. A girl jumped out and entered the field, in the rain, and started wandering along behind the hedge. Uh oh – it was crystal clear that she was looking for a place to have a pee!!???? Blimey - this is gonna be embarassing!!!!!!!!!! No, no, no!!!!!! What to do? I ended up pulling my torch out of my pocket, and still unnoticed a long way from her, started shining it directly at her in an attempt to become noticed. Thankfully, just as she was reaching for her belt/trouser button, she finally spotted me and acted all awkward. Phew. That would have been SO embarassing - for us BOTH! (Would have made for an interesting video to put to some music!!! 'Caught In The Act' by Chaka Khan maybe - or 'Embarassment' by Madness - or - or? Big list. lolololol) After depositing my poop scoop bag, my usual route took me past where she was awkwardly hanging around in the rain by the hedge. I tried to make light of it and jokingly said something like, 'Use the pub across the road for christs sake'! Why the hell didn't she? She didn't reply and made her way back to join the driver in the truck, which quickly drove off!!???? Utterly bizarre behaviour. . uh oh. :o( On the way back from the field, Little Xxxxxx and his merry band of yobs (much the same bunch that stoned me the other night), were leaving the chip shop and were gonna be between me and home. Stopped in the rain just over the pelican crossing, and checked to make sure my MP3 player was definitely recording, before carrying on to face my fate. Why didn't they go up the street I no longer go? Instead, they all walked slowly round the corner the way I was going, eating their chips, sniggering and making 'remarks' (although admittedly, NOT the 'usual' loud aggressive taunting and abuse). I ended up walking along right behind them all - actually in danger of being held up by them obstructing my way. Just then as we were all crossing the road, they mostly peeled off and walked in between a couple of parked cars allowing me to pass. As I walked in the road past them, the kid who ended up stood right next to me as I did so, just happened to be Little Xxxxxx! He looked me square in the face and did a little bit of impossible to explain, agressive body language stuff again. I carried on, as low level comments and sniggers were made by the group. I can't even recall specifically what triggered me to do so, but something was said by someone behind my back (actually - listening to my full quality MP3 player recording, I'm pretty sure it was Little Xxxxxx saying "'E can't do jack shit") and I ended up turning back around and walking back towards the group. Little Xxxxxx immediately 'squared up to me' for the 'confrontation'!! Can he REALY only be 11???? He's almost as tall as I am - and SUCH arrogance/confidence!!!

The 'Conversation' - MP3 1,204KB. Little Xxxxxx saying "Get that thing away from me " at time index 1:20 refers to Sally sniffing towards him looking for chips! -//unfinished//-

I'm not proud of what I said (I didn't swear 'too' much - but regret having made that 'looking forward to next week?' statement!) - but I really think I've actually shown HUGE restraint throughout all of this. Am I doing 'ok' or not? I've no idea. What SHOULD I be doing? How SHOULD I handle all this - left to deal with it completely on my own, 'hung out to dry' by a police force that wants nothing to do with it and doesn't come when I call for help? I've never known anyone who's been trapped in such an intractable, impossible situation. I have no frame of reference. :o( Straight back home and raced in to get the CCTV picture monitoring on the main TV. Surely - they were surely just BOUND to initiate some form of rapid response weren't they? I was convinced they would - or maybe even his father again? VERY scared and up tight. It was an hour before I felt comfortable enough to take my shoes and coat off!! Monitored the CCTV for hours. . . poor BB called. NOT NOW!!!! I need to be hyper-vigilant! . . Drank a tin of Red-Bull. . . . eventually called her back and touched base and explained stuff. PCd a bit of this on the living room PC while 'on guard'. .to cut a VERY long and anxious story short, there was NO response. Lots of other stuff going on in the street - death defying mini moto riders, groups of loud drunks, an occasional police car (I even imagined THEY were coming to arrest me, expecting that some false allegations may have been made about me by those kids - again!), but nothing happened specifically directed against ME. What a relief - or maybe - I gotta admit, just a little bit, maybe not. It would have been jolly good for my 'evidence gathering' if something HAD happened tonight. In a funny way, that kid and his Dad, they should be grateful they have singled ME out for this treatment. I've come across many people in my younger more 'out-and-about' days, who simply wouldn't have abided by the law and put up with all this s**t! They would have used immediate force and extreme violence to bring a VERY swift end to it all. Hell - it even went through MY mind tonight, that I could have come home, set fire to my car and then quickly walked up the road for a kebab, to innocently return later to find myself the victim of a yob arson attack - and then suggest who MUST have done it given what happened/what was said earlier. Would have worked wouldn't it? lolol If Only I COULD lie like that, and then live with it - I imagine it would make life so much easier sometimes! . . . eventually after midnight I assumed the coast would probably remain clear, for tonight at least. Bloody hell. Is it actually possible what I said somehow got through to Little Xxxxxx and will see me get some relief from the onslaught? (I doubt it. :o( ) . . Ate three buttered hot cross buns and a few bowls of corn-flakes. . attempted to call BB around 3am to let her hear the three young people that had decided to sit on the garden wall opposite for around an hour (which of course had me SO uptight)! I think they were probably just a bit drunk, and I have to admit, despite the remarkable sensitivity of my CCTV microphone, I think they were 'mostly' making an effort to keep the noise down. Having said that, the reason I wanted to share it with BB was, they appeared to be doing their own version of Pop Idol or something, and were singing songs!! WHOLE songs - badly! lololol . . continued my CCTV vigil through until around 4am before bed - or was it earlier! Not sure. The clocks changed to british summer time at 2am. s
26 - Woken by Sally somewhere around 8am. God I feel a bit 'wooly'! Lack of sleep over several days I suspect . . .walked and found 6p. Quick chat with next door over there walking her pup. She expressed concern (regret for any disturbance) that she thinks her dog may be barking whenever she leaves it alone. (Yes - I HAD heard it the other day. Loud!) She said she was going out later and could I keep an ear open and let her know. . back home later, her dog started barking and yelping and wining, so I put my MP3 player to the wall for a few minutes. Worked well. It thankfully settled down quieter after around 15 minutes. Called her in to listen to it when she returned home. Yes - oh dear indeed. It only barks when she leaves it alone, and she does three days of twelve hour shifts each week, and tomorrow is her 6am start! She said her parents would be popping in to check on it during the day, but if there were any problems with the noise, could I call her on her mobile and she'd come home! Uhhuh. :o( She shouldn't have got one. Twelve hour, left-on-its-own shifts indeed!! Poor little woof! Grrrrrr. . . started to PC a bit to try and make sense of some of these audio and video files from over the past couple of days. . touched base with Mum (and Sis1 was down with her) to say happy mothers day. Inevitably ended up talking about all my recent hassles. It seems to have completeluy taken over MY life, and is unhappily negatively touching everyone who knows me! Sorry. :o( . . . PCd a bit of this sucking annadin tablet. Trouble with doing this at the moment, every single day seems to have SUCH a huge amount of nonsense which I need to make a record of, trying to type up my journal is all I have time for (and not!) in between my dog walking sorties into no mans land. This ain't no life. :o( . . . ate defrosted chicken sandwiches and some biscuits . . . napped until woken around 5pm by next doors dog barking as loud as hell because she'd gone out! I can see a real 'problem' developing here! :o( . . Still headachey. More annadin. . . PCd and worked on the nasty video from the other nights stoneing nightmare, trying to edit out all the rubbish and splice in some of the audio captured on my MP3 player, CCTV etc. and get it all in a proper time line. . . loaded up with all my electronic countermeasures and made ready for Sally's walk and whatever nightmare tonight was going to give me. I amused myself by saying to Sally (so it would be on my audio recording) "Once more unto the breach dear friend. God help us!" as I opened my front door around 7:15pm. At least there is still a bit of daylight now. Seconds after setting off down the street, two little girls who walked past me in the opposite direction on the other side of the street shouted out after me "Pedo!". Video 974KB.
All this nonsense had been getting to me a bit today. That very nearly finished me off. :o( I mean - be honest - it isn't is it. It just isn't worth living like this is it. Can't see much point in living in such a world at all really. Gotta hang on till Thursday at least - but then - all this won't stop then will it. There IS no stopping it. EVER. Not now. . told a lady dog walker (with her young daughter who goes to the local school) my sorry tale. She was 'almost' speechless. lol . . . back home not feeling so good and a bit nauseas. All this pounding heart in my chest stuff is making my head feel - um - 'full'. :o( . . . carried on PCing the big piece of video. . . touched base with BB . . . PCd on through the early hours until I thought I'd reached a 'reasonable' compromise result with my big evidence?/horror movie (5.42MB) from the other night! So - how SHOULD I be dealing with this? . . . touched base with BB before bed a little after 4am. ssaa
27 - Woken by Sally and or the barking from next doors dog around 9:15am . . . walked in a hint of drizzle after popping back home to put a toad from the pavement into the garden. . . PCd attempting to compile all my 'evidence' all day, and put all the pieces together into a concise timeline. . .lots of barking and heart wrenching wining from next doors dog to contend with for part of the day. I successfully ignored it (the neighbours parents called in and tended to it on two occasions) until the noise turned into something more like damage was being done. 'Digging' at a door sounds. Called the neighbor on the mobile number she'd left with me for such circumstances, and explained my concerns - not so much about the disturbance to me, but more about what damage may be being done (and concerned the dog could be hurting itself!!). Things eventually quietened back down. I don't think she managed to get anyone to call back in. She called later and I let her know things were quieter again. . . I'm running out of time here! Eventually gave up waiting for the call that never comes, and phoned the police again, attempting to get in touch with the PC who took my original statement. She wasn't back on duty until tomorrow, so yet another 'contact Terry Urgently' message was left. :o( . . . napped for maybe an hour. . .Received a bit of uplifting feedback from the website. I'd been hoping for an impartial opinion on things.
Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by () on Monday, March 27, 2006 at 17:58:52
name: Fred
Comments: You've never met ''anyone'' who has had it as hard as you? Try having to work every day for a living you work-shy prick.
Bad day at work 'Fred'? Weird - but no matter how much I re-read what I've written, nowhere can I find ANY suggestion that I have EVER said anything like 'I've never met anyone who has it as hard as me'. Why do intelectually challenged people surfing my site, read a word or two, and then just project their own subconscious self-loathing inferiority onto me, and feel compelled, cowering behind their anonymity, to send me infantile abuse? Whatever the reason, this one sure made me feel - um - 'superior', and actually cheered me up no end. Nice one 'Fred'. Thanks. :o) Cheered me up so much, I think I'll even deign to 'bite' and respond - which is presumably what was desired!? . lololololol
<RANT>A prick I may be. That is of course entirely subjective. I've thought that about myself and my own actions on many occasions, so I don't have a problem with that. As far as "You've never met 'anyone'' who has had it as hard as you?" goes, well, first of all I don't believe I've EVER said such a thing. Not here, not ever. Never would no matter what becomes of me. I have the increasingly rare so it seems, basic ability to 'empathise' , you see. You would benefit as a human being, in cultivating such an ability. I've sure had some times which I've found tough for ME, but that's my business. Everyone has their own hard times, unique to them. Everyones ability to deal with hard times is uniquely theirs. Some people can shrug off the most outrageous misfortunes. Some fall at lesser hurdles. Every one is different. I am old enough and wise enough and have 'grown' sufficient to understand that. I often fail (because I'm a prick?) but I attempt to live in such a way that acknowledges all of this and adds no greater suffering to ANY life. Can you say the same Fred? Having said all of that, don't forget, I've not actually really met that many people! lololol As for 'work-shy', no. I've NEVER been that. Always worked pretty hard right up until my 'breakdown' . Paper round as a kid. Petrol station forecourt monkey over in Filton - a good five miles cycle away. Dropped out of A levels and straight into a dead end low pay furniture sales job. After that as a postman on shift work, I was often embroiled in arguments, where the other workers wanted me to slow down and do less, because it was showing them up as lazy. Always grabbed however much overtime I could possibly get my hands on ('straight eights' I think they called it. Two shifts, one of them the night shift, totalling 16 hrs. That put paid to any social life, so getting by on the money was do-able.) to maintain my single-owner mortgage at 19. Later on when I moved onto the computers, I worked so hard at it, I even brought work home in the evenings and regularly stayed up until the early hours before getting back up for work around 6am. Even now, when I can find the energy (and aren't wasting my life having to defend myself/home from the intelectualy challenged), I work pretty hard at whatever I do, usually to the point of my own physical limitations, and often beyond. The building work on the house for example. So, work-shy? No. Although admittedly subjective, from what I've experienced of others, I simply don't believe that can be considered accurate. If it is my perceived financial status which you are criticising, then although it really is of course absolutely none of your f-ing business, I'll SPELL it out for you. Throughout my life to date, I have not EVER received a SINGLE penny of ANY form of welfare handout (unless you count the loft insulation grant I got twenty years ago?). I've NEVER been on the 'dole' or received ANY form of benefit! Hell, I haven't even applied for the last three years, for the savings interest tax refund I'm due because of my low income! You see, I HAVE worked hard all my life. Scrimped and saved; went without; always paid more off my mortgage each month than I needed to; learned to do most everything (maintenance etc) myself because I couldn't afford the alternative; denied myself much of the lifestyle that everyone else takes for granted; never went away on 'holiday'; outfitted myself with cheap charity shop clothes and dead mens shoes; bought and ate the cheapest most disgusting economy food; I've never bought a bed in my life - always used other peoples throw aways; mostly bought second hand when I needed a sofa or oven; the list goes on. Do you GET it yet? My house is bought and paid for because I worked HARD to do it. I have some savings in the bank because I went without and worked HARD to put them there. I receive an occupational pension of £413.61 per month (it's just gone up by £10.87, allegedly to cover this years inflation - but of course that amount doesn't!) because I had a mental breakdown and was oh SO lucky, to eventually be medically retired. So there it is. That's how I'm living now. Aroundabout the poverty line, choosing not to work if I can pull it off, until at least my dog is dead and gone. It's my choice - because I can. Oh yes - I'm very aware I don't have it as hard as some others do - and I'm very, VERY grateful for that. So - there ya go then Dick-Head-Fred. You EVER claimed benefits? Lived in a council house? How much of MY taxes have YOU had? Pick another reason to have a pop at me (there ARE plenty), cause this one is fatally flawed. </RANT>
Phew. I almost enjoyed that. Probably have cause to regret it later. lolololol . .walked. Down the road, the 'stone thrower' and others in the distance saw me coming and called out "It's bin-man - quick!" and they ran out of sight around the corner I was approaching! Uh oh. :o( Rounding the corner, the (six strong?) group were assembled in the lane behind the shops. At the same time, another group of at least four were crossing over the road from a nearby youth's house to join them. A couple of people nearby were getting out of a car, so maybe that was why, but I didn't hear the usual abuse I can expect (although my paranoia did see me half duck behind a parked van as soon as I could, because the surface of that lane is loose stones!). Carried on to walk Sally around the field without incident. On the way back out of the field my attention was drawn to the adjacent road by a lot of clanking noise. Two youths were making their way along the road with some difficulty. One was carrying a large tubular framed garden swing, the other was carrying a large 'slide' attachment. They had to keep on stopping for a breather. In a different world I guess it would have been worth a call to the police for them to come check it out, but despite my strong desire to do so, I knew it would have been utterly pointless, and didn't. I'd put money on some poor family waking up tomorrow to find their childrens' play equipment has been stolen from their garden. :o( Even more hassle I do not need, but I couldn't resist having a bit of a secret go with the camcorder as I ambled along behind. It WAS actually funny. To see a swing and slide, walking across the main road and down a side street (the one I no longer walk, in the direction of Xxxxxx house!) It started to look as though they'd noticed me so I quickly took my usual route home round the corner out of their sight. . as I passed the now deserted lane behind the shops, I noticed the metal shutter on one of the garages was all bent outwards! I tried to ignore it and walk on - but of course I ended up returning to see what damage had been done. The shop owner was inside phoning the police. Turned out the garage had just been broken into, and some of the stock (drinks and such) taken by youths. Oooooooh - the 'stone thrower' and party perhaps? Oooooooh. I wonder . . . I had to! Returned home, threw Sally's food in her bowl, and headed for the car, intending to do a quick jaunt around the area with the camcorder, to maybe locate the stone thrower group and see if they were carrying 'stuff', and if so, call the police (for them frustratingly not to come of course). Just before getting in the car I saw a pair of mating frogs on the pavement, and felt obliged to quickly rush them through the house to the safety of the back garden, before setting off. I was only out for around five minutes or so. I located the group and drove past them twice unnoticed, but could see nothing being carried, so returned home (admittedly rather disappointed) without incident. . . touched base with BB . . . ate pizza with extra gone-off cheese. . TVd . . . PCd some more until early before doing a test 'burn' to my hard drive of my evidence timeline compilation. It's half finished and not perfect, but it gives a pretty good idea I think. I haven't even included everything yet, but already surely MUST be more of such nonsense than most people experience in a lifetime! Astonishing. . to bed around 2am. as
28 - Woken by the phone ringing and the ansaphone picking up somewhere before 8am-ish. Yayyyyyy - AT LAST!!!! It was PC Xxxxxx returned from days off, getting in touch as a result of the 'URGENT' messages she'd been passed. She said she'd pop round and take a statement. Joy! . . rushed to grab a coffee and cigarettes and wake up sufficiently to make some sense. Quickly transferred yesterdays half finished DVD test video from my main PC to the living room one, to enable me to 'present' them with my 'evidence'. . .sure enough, well within the half hour she was pulling up outside - in a marked car! Yikes - hope none of the yobs got to see that, or I could be in for yet more hassle! . . as best I could, I explained my 'daily life made hell' since the 9th November assault, and they humoured me by watching my full quality DVD on the main TV. The upshot of it all was, they fully understood what was going on, but 'legally', there was nothing to suggest a direct link to the upcoming court case - mostly because in my original statement after the assault, I had said that I was already receiving abuse from local yobs! Well - yeah - but not on THIS scale for christsake! The nature of the abuse, and frequency has changed dramatically! It's escalated beyond belief, and by the very nature of the ACTUAL words of abuse that are now used, (litterly the words that came out of Xxxxxx's mouth when he assaulted me), it absolutely IS directly linked! It's bloody obvious!!!!!! Nevertheless, the statement that she eventually wrote was SUCH a watered down generalisation of what's been going on, centering mostly on my allegation of having been stoned the other night, I wonder if it was worth all the bother. :o( To cap it all, she suggested she'd have a word with the local beat manager and ask him to get in touch about all the neighbourhood anti social behavior - but also because there was an issue about my CCTV camera. It shouldn't be pointed at the street like I do. Oh for gods sake. So - the only little piece of defence that I have against all that has been going on, is gonna be taken from me? Now I'M the bad guy?Ohhhhwwww no. No, no, no. Sorry - but I've had more than I can take of all this f****** absurdity, where the law actively makes it easier and easier for the yobs to rule with impunity. I've been pushed, absolutely to the brink by all this nonsense. I'm worried it isn't gonna take much more for me to crack, and actively conclude that a spell in prison is worth the price of wreaking awful vengence on someone. (On the TV text news yesterday, an article about someone convicted of murder (or was it knocked down to manslaughter as they always so easily do) - given 'life' - with a recommendation they serve at least six years! Six years? Is that all? Blimey - with all this provocation - with my 'medical history' - I could maybe even get out in time to see an old Sally! lol) I draw a line - I absolutely WILL go to prison before I take down my CCTV camera. I really fail to understand the problem. If I spent the rest of my life sat at my window, watching, would that too be illegal? Probably not. So - the law says I'm allowed to see you break the law, but I'm not allowed to prove it with actual evidence? Uh huh. (Another news item about a strike tomorrow, said the police switchboards would be affected, and they asked people not to call the police non emergency numbers!!!!? The yobs'll love that!) Despite that 'hickup' in proceedings, they were very understanding and pleasant, and after they'd gone, I felt a sense of relief and slightly less desperate now that the CPS would have at least 'some' record of continuing 'difficulties' . . . briefly touched base with BB before walking Sally. SUCH sadness at all the squashed frogs all around. :o( Found 6p. . Returning from the field, the police had JUST arrived at the shop which was broken into last night! What was that then - a 14 hour response time to a shout? Jeeze - pretty quick based on MY experiences of calling them! The (ex sub post office) shopowner (once awarded honours I seem to recall, for defending himself against an armed robbery - with a sword was it, or was that one of the others?) was walking back round from the garage/scene of the crime with a policeman, and called me over (by name!?) for a word. Was there any information I could give him to help identify those responsible. Tough one that. I'm pretty damn sure the 'usual suspects' were involved/responsible, but particularly after my experience with the policewoman earlier where no amount of circumstancial evidence is EVER gonna be of use, I pretty much said I couldn't really help. I DID however give the description of the 'stone thrower' who I'd seen hanging around with the group, who 'may' have information. Wow - even from that clothing description, the shop owner thought he knew who I meant - because he goes in the shop! . Madness!!!! I'm surrounded by madness. . next door's Mum was in to walk and tend to her pup. She confirmed the kitchen door had been damaged by it yesterday. . . touched base with Mum . . . PCd a bit of this . .uh oh. An abnormally large number of hits on the website all of a sudden! I've been all primed and ready for a while now, at a moments notice, should possible events and circumstances warrant, for it all to sadly suddenly be deleted and removed from the web and me to 'disappear'. Easy come, easy go. :o( The day that happens - if it is as a result of 'the recent nonsense' - I go to the press - WITH names - and invest in a neighbourhoodwide DVD distribution!! :o/ . . . attempted to nap but couldn't - roused to look out of the window at every noise, of which there were many because it was blowing a gale. :o( . . . touched base with BB . . . TVd in despair, watching live coverage of the riots in Paris. :o( . . . walked - actually accompanied all the way by the woman next door who was just leaving home to walk hers at the same time. I felt obliged to amble along with her. She even announced she was buying some chips on the way home which was precisely what I'd been planning! Stopped for suasage and chips takeaway on the way home leaving the neighbour in the chip shop. Found 5p. . . TVd/PCd . .usual 'up tightness' but nothing to report apart from an isolated calling out of " . . .Bin mans car . . . " from a couple of youths on the rainy corner opposite at some point. . .eventually ended up on the PC and actually watched a couple of my own videos, with the headpones on (to force myself to ignore intrusion from the outside world) before bed around 1am. as
29 - Woken by the reving of a car engine and multiple horn blowing around 5:15am. The guy over opposites' lift to work! Selfish sod! Grrr. .eventually back to sleep until woken by Sally licks around 9am . . .walked and found a penny. Another (stolen?) dumped push bike - under the 'overhang' at the bottom of the field! Nice suspension forks on that one. What a waste. (Have I mentioned? I have on a few occasions while walking past with Sally, actually started tearing off a few of the branches down there, in an attempt to make the 'overhang' less of a hiding place for 'stuff' (and in my recent fearful paranoia - potential attackers mostly!)). The yobs have also been continuing the destruction of the only little bit of the kids play area that remains and have started to dig up, have made a hole in/ruined, the rubberised floor covering that the council lay under the childrens swings to prevent falling injuries these days. . up tight. Feel as though I should be sitting down going through all my journal trying to re-awaken buried memories - but I keep putting it off. I just don't want to be reminded of it until it is absolutely necessary. I probably also should be drawing up some sort of 'impact statement', but I don't want to have to think about that either - and without a printer, and not actually knowing if it is appropriate/allowed to read out some long 'speech' in court, what's the point. In the grand tradition of 'Terry comes across poorly and puts his foot in it', I think if the 'impact statement' situation arises, I'm just gonna try and 'wing' it. . . What to do? Very up tight and wanting to escape. What to do? Ooh, oooh, oooh - a sunny spell! Remembered just in time to race out into the garden in search of the partial eclipse of the sun. Oh YES! Rushed around and set the camcorder up, with the glass from my welding mask held in place across the lens with a few small elastic bands. That worked (apart from making everything green of course! :o( ). Thank god for the distraction. Messed around watching between the clouds, until it was done around midday. Watching something like that SO puts our petty meaningless place in the universe in perspective for me. In the grand scheme of things - I have come to see mankind, as significant as, a virus is to us! In fact - less so! What place man made religions in all of this? . . . PCd a bit of this while watching TV. Uhuh!? there was a program on Men And Motors called 'Eyes In The Sky' showing aerial footage of stuff. They showed a US police chase. A 'transiant' had stolen a bus at knifepoint, and gave the police a two hour chase. He eventually stopped, exited the bus and took up the 'fellony arrest, prone position' and was pounced on by a bunch of armed police. As they were cuffing him on the ground, a german shepherd dog 'K9 officer' behind the wheel of a police car drove over him! lolololololol REALLY! I'm with the dog on that one! Dogs are SO cool. :o) . . .ate a tin of sausages and beans covered in grated cheese with four crusts of bread and butter. . .napped until woken by Mum calling to touch base and wish me luck for tomorrow. Blimey well past 7pm already!! Good job she DID call! Bet I'll be awake all night now! :o( . . .walked late, without incident - which incredibly has become worthy of note in itself of late! In fact, I would go so far as to say, it was strangely quiet out which was MOST welcome, once I'd got back home and realised it. Despite that, tonights walk saw me more up tight/defensively-vigilant than ever. Actually made my head feel weird and after having sat on a boulder for my cigarette, actually felt dangerously 'light headed' . LB and her guy had just returned home as I walked along the street, so I popped up and apologised for having 'fobbed her off' rather rudely the last time she called me (which was right after my stoneing I think it was). LB popped down a couple of minutes later with a couple of pieces of some sort of orange cake thing she'd made, which'll probably end up being all I eat tonight. Shortly after she'd gone, I threw up. . TVd all evening. . . finally bit the bullet and re-read a few bits of my journal. . .ate LBs orange cake stuff. . . trimmed my hair, had my 'wardrobe crisis' and ended up thinking to hell with it, I'll wear my funeral outfit cause that kinda sums it all up for me. Set two alarms and primed BB to call around 6am as well. . . TVd but I've no idea what - I don't think it mattered . . .surfed and ended up doing a Google search for sites that link to mine. What on earth? Ewwww. Some horrible returns suggesting a link to my website in response to 'Woman Giving hand job', 'Men Trouser Bulge Photos' etc etc!!! Infoseek.com seems to be one of the worst culprits for such utter nonsense references. Yuk. No wonder I've come in for abuse from 'sickos' who've somehow ended up on my site!! I may have to try and do something about that. :o( One of the links to my site I found, did however 'circumstancialy' explain why I'd suddenly got all those hits the other day and put my mind at ease over THAT. It was one of these 'b log' thingies that have become fashionable - "Ramblings of a UK Detective in a Regional Police Force." There was an entry on Saturday, March 25, 2006 entitled 'Life in the city - Bristol' which included ". . I came across this site. It seems to be a diary of a well meaning but not necessarily well resident of an area in Bristol. (Yeah - I guess that pretty much sums me up - especially after everything of late!! lolol) It goes on a bit, (Huh? You mean you don't want to know what I had for tea? lolololololololol :o) ) but does give a feeling of what it is like living in a community where the yobs are running the police ragged. This is an account of real life where it seems like law and order has broken down. No offence meant to to Avon and Somerset officers and staff. Spread too thin with one hand behind your back, usual stuff I would guess." There was even an anonymous reply to the entry which read as follows:-"This is pretty sad. I have lived and worked through similar incidents. As a copper I have seen this many many times, and we all know the frustrations that go along with this. When I was younger (about 3 years ago)there was a pair of scrotes who lived across from folks. From the age of 15 these scrotes were joyriding their dad's jag. Shouting abuse and intmidating anyone who dare to cross them. That included my mum. To have someone bully your mum, your family, your own, is the worst and most upsetting thing they can do. When I returned from uni, to find out the full extent of what was going on, police involvement I blew my top. I'm not proud of what I did, but I believe with these sort of people that is very little they understand. They don't know the differnece between right and wrong. They do however know the difference between pain and no pain. After me and a few sympathetic people had finished with him, he never caused problems in our area again. As a serving officer now, nothing upsets me and frustrates me more than hate crime. I am not proud of what I did but I would do it again. The law is powerless when it comes to these people. People may say this is a cliche but with everything I've seen during my probation (and with the 2 scrotes), I blame the parents." It must be going on everywhere mustn't it - and far worse than I've experienced! Whichever way you look at it, and whatever reasons you come up with, there IS a terrible growing (untreated?) 'cancer' in our society. :o( One step away from the cancer being the norm! . . . finally attempted to force myself to sleep some time after 2:30am.
30 - Gave up trying to sleep before 5am and touched base with BB . . . forced down a bowl of muesli . . .walked Sally and found a dog walker to tell my tale to, who'd not yet heard it and who made the innocent mistake of commenting on how I was walking early. Told her why. . .back home to throw up again. So much for the muesli! :o( . . showered and dressed up in my too-small-really, charity shop black and white three piece, like a coffin bearer! Sorted out the court papers and realised it was actually for 9:45 rather than 9:30am as I'd thought. Half a coffee, wished Sally luck and explained that she should go out to the conservatory if anything nasty happened (I left my chair 'unguarded' so she could sit in it and make it all muddy if she wanted), and then set off for the bus stop in drizzle around 8:30am.

-/ CPS case. Me up first.